How important the opinion is of “outsiders” toward the club may or may not matter (there are plenty of arguments that validate the significance of mainstream perception, others prove its irrelevance). Regardless, Sunday will be another case when doses and doses of casual football viewers will check in on AV since the Tottenham visit will literally be match of the day for the PL.

Lately such a stage hasn’t been kind, mostly because the opponent has been the levitated choice for the expanded-interest broadcast.

Just three of the past 10 Villa appearances inside an arena of time containing no other PL kickoffs have resulted in victories, though in reality squad members (namely Benteke) have acquitted themselves very well — the collective scoreline is merely a one-goal difference (15-14) during that span. Below is the full list.

21 September

1-0 @Norwich

Scorer: Kozak

24 August0-1 vLiverpool

21 August

1-2 @Chelsea

Scorer: Benteke

11 May

1-2 vChelsea

Scorer: Benteke

29 April

6-1 vSunderland

Scorers: Agbonlahor, Benteke 3, Vlaar, Weimann

22 April

0-3 @Manchester United

31 March

1-2 vLiverpool

Scorer: Benteke

4 March

0-1 vManchester City

10 February

2-1 vWest Ham

Scorers: Benteke, N’Zogbia

19 January

2-2 @West Brom

Scorers: Agbonlahor, Benteke

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LOW ‘LEY

Scrunch that Ashley Westwood experienced at Hull City ideally has been erased personally in the 15 days that will have since passed by the time kickoff comes around this weekend.

How inarticulate he was in the 0-0 draw: His second forward pass didn’t come until 9 minutes, 28 seconds had passed and ultimately five other Aston Villa players ended up on the the ball more.

Perhaps the recent of eruption of Fabian Delph’s vigor was a factor or the flow of the match simply passed refused inclusion, but Westwood had been one of squad’s three most active passers in 20 of his 21 prior appearances — more specifically in each of his last 14. Below is the full list.

Pass Activity

Ashley Westwood

Last 21 Appearances

*Denotes 2012-2013

AV rank (amount of passes)

6th @Hull City (37)

1st vNewcastle (59)

3rd vLiverpool (57)

2nd @Chelsea (39)

3rd @Arsenal (30)

1st @Wigan (57)*

3rd vSunderland (84)*

1st @Norwich (60)*

3rd @Manchester United (56)*

3rd vFulham (46)*

2nd @Stoke City (48)*

1st vLiverpool (71)*

1st @Queens Park (76)*

2nd vManchester City (46)*

1st @Reading (71)*

8th @Arsenal (29)*

3rd vWest Ham (37)*

3rd @Everton (21)*

2nd vNewcastle (41)*

2nd @West Brom (31)*
3rd vSouthampton (35)*

1st @Swansea (37)*

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RISE GUYS

Brace yourselves: Yet another segment about reputations and perceptions has arrived (just remember, “vanity” jives with “sanity”). Here, specific valuations of which players’ actual output is surpassing their worth in the grand scheme get explored with help from two online sources.

While Transfermarkt (http://www.transfermarkt.com/) prides itself on measuring the market value within the trade element of world football, Who Scored (http://www.whoscored.com/statistics) tries to solve curiosities about impact on the pitch. So below is an effort to combine two such assessments for the sake of hints about which Villans might be quenching their current reputation in the market. Furthermore, this exercise presents a sense for who are the buys that may truly blossom into impact-makers and weren’t supplied proper credit scores for their capabilities.

It must be stated that both rating systems do prove far from flawless, depending on their usage. Nevertheless, a look at the Villa hierarchy in both realms and the biggest shifts from Who Scored’s vision for player production so far this season compared to Transfermarkt’s value ranks before the season commenced: